This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 2: “God’s Grand, Christ-Centered Plan”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems With This Lesson:
- The lesson states early on that “we lose salvation only by our own sinful choices.” There is no acknowledgment of depravity.
- The lesson teaches that the Holy Spirit is God’s seal, “a first installment”, or guarantee, of salvation to be received gratefully but also to which one makes additional payments.
- The lesson diminishes believers being with Christ “in heavenly places” to represent a metaphorical reality that exalts one’s communication and witnessing instead of a new identity that is literal.
This week’s lesson, similarly to last week’s, is “off” subtly in terms of actual words, but when one considers all that is left out and slightly altered in the discussion of Ephesians 1 especially, the entire message is shifted to be inside-out and backwards. This lesson attempts to give the reader methods for upping their daily lives to be more Christ-centered and to grappling with the concept of “election” without giving up the Adventist centrality of free will.
Sunday’s lesson sets the stage by grabbing a few texts from Ephesians 1 to explain the “inspiring language about how God views us in Christ.” While the actual words used in the initial sentences are not intrinsically wrong, the overall message supports the Adventist view of man and his supremely valuable free will. The third paragraph, however, ends with these words:
In short, it’s God’s intention for us to be saved. We lose salvation only by our own sinful choices.
This sentence suggests what is often taught by more “progressive” or “evangelical” Adventists: that Jesus’ death brought salvation to everyone, but a person can choose not to be saved. Yet this perspective is not what Scripture teaches. We are not born “saved” but can opt out.
By way of comparison, let’s read Ephesians 1:3–6:
Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Eph 1:3-6).
First, we have to consider the first audience. Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus, a group of believing gentiles who did not previously know or observe the law of Moses. Rather, they came to faith by hearing the gospel of their salvation—that Jesus died for their sins according to Scripture, that He died, and that He was raised on the third day according to Scripture—and they believed in Him. They understood that they were sinners, and Jesus provided the only way that they could be reconciled to God and saved eternally. They believed, and they were born again.
In this letter, Paul reminds them exactly what happened. He outlines the story of their coming to faith and explains what happened to them—how they were foreknown and elected by God before creation occurred, how they were predestined to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, how they believed and were indwelled by the Holy Spirit who is a seal of promise, the Guarantee of their eternal life and inheritance.
Paul is explaining the bigger picture of their salvation. They were chosen and known by God before they were even created, and God predestined their adoption as His sons through His own Son, Jesus Christ, and they would be for the praise of His glory. In other words, their belief and the resultant new birth, their sealing with the Holy Spirit would honor and glorify God to the universe.
Their becoming Christians had nothing to do with keeping the law or adopting circumcision, Sabbath, or food laws. It had everything to do with being born again as a consequence of believing, and ultimately being an eternal and universal praise to God Himself. They would reflect God’s purposes and wisdom, His justice and mercy, and God would be glorified because of them!
The lesson makes a point the text does not make; it suggests that God’s intention is that every single person be saved, but people disappoint God by choosing sin over Him.
While God is “not wishing for any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9), He is not in heaven waiting to see who will be saved and who won’t. Furthermore, we do not choose to be lost by sinning! Rather, it’s exactly the opposite. We are born dead in sin, by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:1–3), and people are by nature children of wrath. We are condemned from birth, and only by believing do we pass out of death into life (Jn. 5:24), and we do not come into condemnation. But until we believe, we are “condemned already” (Jn. 3:18).
In other words, the lesson inverts what Scripture tells is about salvation: it is of the Lord. We do not choose to be saved and demonstrate our choice by refusing to sin. Jesus said no one comes to Him unless the Father draws him (Jn. 6:44), and our salvation is entirely a work of God. We are not essentially born into salvation with the option of choosing to opt out. On the contrary, we are born condemned. We are saved when the Father draws us to see the Son clearly, to see our sin, and to realize we must have a Savior. When we believe and trust the finished atonement of Jesus, then we are saved—and it is all of God, not of us!
The lesson, however, retains the Adventist view that we choose Jesus and put away sin, that we must demonstrate our commitment by commandment-keeping in order to be saved.
Sealed!
While the lesson quotes an author who does say that “the Holy Spirit seals…that believe in Christ for the day of redemption,” that He “marks Christ’s followers with the seal of salvation right when they first believe,” the author goes on to say,
The word translated “guarantee” (arrabōn) was a Hebrew loan word that was used widely in the common or Koine Greek of New Testament times to indicate a “first installment,” “deposit,” or “down payment” that requires the payer to make additional payments (Thursday’s lesson in theAdult Bible Study Guide).
In other words, the author cannot allow the actual meaning of Ephesians 1:13,14 to stand on its own. He must insert the doubt that one’s salvation is a guarantee because, as we know, Adventism teaches that the saved will ultimately be identified by their complete loyalty to the Sabbath. The truth, however, is that believers have an ABSOLUTE guarantee: the presence of God Himself will indwell them and never leave them! Here is Ephesians 1:13,14:
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of [God’s own] possession, to the praise of His glory (Eph 1:13-14).
There is no qualification in this passage. Salvation is a secure, done deal when we believe the gospel of our salvation! Importantly, while the quarterly says that when one is converted, the Holy Spirit seals them, the Bible does not speak of “conversion”. It speaks of “believing”. From an Adventist perspective, “conversion” means knowing and accepting Adventist theology and teachings, agreeing to keep the Sabbath and observe the health message.
The word “conversion” is almost a private code for “adopting Adventism”. Furthermore, Ellen White says that the Sabbath is the seal of God, and Sabbath-keeping will be the mark of the saved. The lesson does not overtly state this belief, but it carefully words its explanation of Ephesians in order not to contradict Adventist doctrine.
Finally, the Teachers Comments end with a question for the class:
In Ephesians1:5, Paul writes that God“predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (NASB). Many Christians take this text to mean that the apostle teaches the concept of predestination in the sense that God selects us to be saved and that we cannot do anything to resist His will or change His decision in this matter. How would your students explain this text to the following groups of people: (1) their Christian friends who believe in the concept of predestination and (2) their non-Christian friends or neighbors?
This sort of deflection of the eternal wonder of God’s election and of our being sealed with God Himself when we believe is the essence of this entire quarter’s lessons. In reality, Ephesians cannot be reduced to moral reflections for a group of unbelievers who hold to a false gospel.
Paul’s commands are not for unbelievers; they are for believers only. The command Paul gives to unbelievers is very simple but profound: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! Believe in His finished atonement. Believe that He took God’s wrath for your sin and that He has opened a new and living way to the Father (Heb. 10:20).
Instead of reading the quarterly and becoming confused with the author’s recombining texts and inserting Adventist meanings that destroy the clear meanings of the actual words, read the book of Ephesians!
For more careful analysis of Ephesians, go to Former Adventist Podcast and listen to their series of podcasts on the book of Ephesians. The series begins with podcast #77 and goes through podcast #98. Here is a link to the Former Adventist Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024
- We Got Mail - April 25, 2024
- April 20–26, 2024 - April 18, 2024